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kateywumpus 's review for:
The Genesis of Misery
by Neon Yang
Okay. Wow. I had to let this one sit for a while before I could really come to a conclusion on what I felt about it. See, part of is that what the blurb says the book is about is only partially true. That's the first half. I *liked* the first half. I liked the ambiguity of whether or not Misery was the chosen messiah or hallucinating. I liked the setting. I liked the characters. Then her apotheosis happens and she becomes a religious fanatic which was really hard to read because of today's political clime. Like, she becomes a frothing at the mouth bible thumping (though there is no bible to thump) true believer, and the book loses all sense of subtlety.
Or does it?
See, the book is being told by a literal unreliable narrator, so when you're reading it you can kind of tell that there's more going on than what's being shown, which was enough to make me stick through it waiting for the twist.... *hoping* there'd be a twist. And when the twist came it just made me... sad, really. Misery was set up to fail, and looking back on the book it just ends up being really tragic. It made me kind of have to go and process my emotions about how I felt about the book afterwards.
One major thing to note about the book is the use of neopronouns. In this world that the author created, pronouns aren't assumed as they are here. Finding out what your pronouns are is a common courtesy, and they aren't limited to just he/she/they. There's also xie/xem, ze/hir, and ze/zir. It was nice to see, but it got a bit confusing for me to try to keep track of who used which pronouns, and I chalk that up to me being old and not being all that accustomed to neopronouns.
So should you read this? ... yees? Look, the book was described as "Gideon the Ninth meets Joan of Arc with giant mecha" and that's a pretty fair assessment. If that makes you go, Oooh I want to read that, then by all means pick up the book. 4 stars.
Or does it?
See, the book is being told by a literal unreliable narrator, so when you're reading it you can kind of tell that there's more going on than what's being shown, which was enough to make me stick through it waiting for the twist.... *hoping* there'd be a twist. And when the twist came it just made me... sad, really. Misery was set up to fail, and looking back on the book it just ends up being really tragic. It made me kind of have to go and process my emotions about how I felt about the book afterwards.
One major thing to note about the book is the use of neopronouns. In this world that the author created, pronouns aren't assumed as they are here. Finding out what your pronouns are is a common courtesy, and they aren't limited to just he/she/they. There's also xie/xem, ze/hir, and ze/zir. It was nice to see, but it got a bit confusing for me to try to keep track of who used which pronouns, and I chalk that up to me being old and not being all that accustomed to neopronouns.
So should you read this? ... yees? Look, the book was described as "Gideon the Ninth meets Joan of Arc with giant mecha" and that's a pretty fair assessment. If that makes you go, Oooh I want to read that, then by all means pick up the book. 4 stars.